Brian Mcwilliams

Longshoremen Oust Incumbent President: David Arian of San Pedro lost his bid for a second three-year term as president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union. Vice President Brian McWilliams defeated Arian by a vote of 7,453 to 5,962, according to results released by the San Francisco-based union. McWilliams, of Petaluma, Calif., will become the fourth president to head the union, which represents 45,000 workers in Hawaii and Alaska and on the U.S. and Canadian West

Longshoremen Oust Incumbent President: David Arian of San Pedro lost his bid for a second three-year term as president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union. Vice President Brian McWilliams defeated Arian by a vote of 7,453 to 5,962, according to results released by the San Francisco-based union. McWilliams, of Petaluma, Calif., will become the fourth president to head the union, which represents 45,000 workers in Hawaii and Alaska and on the U.S. and Canadian West

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union will halt work here and in all West Coast ports today in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a death row inmate whose murder conviction in the slaying of a Philadelphia police officer in 1981 has gained international attention. The action is part of a national day of protest on behalf of Abu-Jamal, whose 17-year effort to win a new trial has become a cause among celebrities, writers, educators and human rights activists in the United States and Europe.

Even Saddam Hussein gets spam. He also gets e-mail purporting to be from U.S. companies offering business deals, and threats, according to a journalist who figured out a way into an Iraqi government e-mail account and downloaded more than 1,000 messages. Brian McWilliams, a freelancer who specializes in Internet security, says he hardly needed high-level hacking skills to snoop through e-mail addressed to Hussein.

A veteran dockworker and labor official from Los Angeles was elected Friday to head the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, among the nation's most powerful labor organizations and one that is facing a range of difficult technological issues on the West Coast. James Spinosa, 59, defeated incumbent Brian McWilliams for president of the San Francisco-based union, which has about 60,000 members in Alaska, California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Canada.

Federal prosecutors and a former America Online Inc. software engineer have negotiated a tentative plea agreement over charges he stole more than 92 million e-mail addresses and sold them to Internet spammers, according to two people familiar with the case. Jason Smathers, 24, of Harpers Ferry, W.Va., is scheduled to appear today in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Frustrated by more than 135 illegal union actions that have repeatedly idled West Coast ports since 1996, a powerful organization of shipping companies is seeking a court order to prevent dock workers from violating contract provisions designed to prohibit strikes and work slowdowns. The Pacific Maritime Assn.

Longshore workers and shipping companies agreed to a new labor contract late Thursday, clearing the way for the resumption of normal cargo operations at West Coast ports that have been plagued by work stoppages and slowdowns for the last 10 days. After almost two months of bargaining in San Francisco, the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Assn.

Sweatshops. Child labor. Jobs fleeing to Mexico. Organized labor, long stymied in its bid to use trade policy as a tool for its agenda, has persuaded the White House to take up its cause when trade ministers from around the world convene in Seattle on Nov. 30. But last week, negotiators got a foreshadowing of what to expect as dozens of developing nations demanded that labor standards be put off-limits at the landmark meeting of the World Trade Organization.

After three years of labor tension and court battles, shipping companies and the powerful dockworkers union this week will begin contract negotiations over basic working conditions and further modernization of America's West Coast ports, including Los Angeles and Long Beach.

They combine the role of boss and worker, administrator and laborer. Together, the three longshoremen who form a majority on the Port of Hueneme's harbor commission are unique: At none of the other 108 ports in 28 states and five U.S. territories do the laborers who work the docks also run the port. "It's the only one now," said Rex Sherman, chief researcher at the American Assn. of Port Authorities in Virginia. "And I think that it may be the first ever."